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US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

ukrainetoday.org

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Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#961

Post by mostlysimilar »

827a wrote: post #520
epistasis wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that the American Empire would be dismantled when it elected a leftist steeped in anti-imperialist ideology who wanted to better the world. Nope, turns out that the American Empire is being dismantled by something else entirely. A subset of the populace that feels jealous of those with more and scared of social change, reacting to try to hurt their fellow country men? A megalomaniac leader who is som…

It always ends up happening how you least expect it, though maybe that expectation is evidence that it was bound to happen via a different road anyway. At the end of the day, the problem isn't really Trump. The American Empire isn't going to end because its only exporting $300B of military might to the world instead of $600B, when no one else on the planet is scratching $50B (I made these numbers up as an illustratio…

> will get downvoted by HackerNews' overwhelmingly leftist bubble

I think your over all point is healthy but you really need to reexamine this assumption. Take a look at /active and see how often topics critical of Trump, Musk, Thiel, Yarvin, etc. flagged.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#962

Post by rurp »

MisterSandman wrote: post #938
wqaatwt wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Taliban/Mujahideen didn’t win per se, they just survived long enough for the foreign “empires” to lose interest. Vietnam wasn’t a conventional conflict either. If you’re willing to lose complete control of most of “your” country and sustain 10x higher casualties than your opponent you might have a chance, but that’s an extremely steep price to pay.

That’s the most interesting way to warp reality that I’ve seen. Afghanistan won, period. It doesn’t matter how Americans would like to advertise their loss - you didn’t “lose interest”, you lost, abandoned the people who were helping you, and have left thousands of innocent civilians to fend for themselves. Afghanistan is, and should be treated as, the biggest failure of the American “empire”.

If you really think the US went all in on Afghanistan with a world war level effort to conquer the country then I don't know what to tell you. After the initial invasion period the country really was a sideshow and became increasingly less prioritized over the years. By the end of the occupation US forces had shrunk to a minuscule size compared to what an invading army would look like.

That doesn't mean that the war was handled well, it clearly wasn't. But looking at a small force and confusing that with the entire might of the US military is baffling to me. "Losing interest" is a perfectly reasonable description of what happened.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#963

Post by bdelmas »

alephnerd wrote: post #945
bdelmas wrote: post #928

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just 2 points missing. 1. The sale of planes like the F-35 is not just about the plane. It’s about the ability to be a nation with nuclear power by “renting” the US nuclear missile it can launch. People bought it mainly for that. The pilot and YouTuber ATE Chuet did a video talking about this if you want to dive into it. 2. The plane in itself is not as capable as say the Rafale. They tried to do way too many things…

The Dassault Rafale and F35 are meant for two different types of missions, and can't be viewed as competitors. Also F35s don't need to be ALIS enabled. Israel's Adir version of the F35 uses a separate set of parts and systems co-developed with France and India. Realistically, I don't see Ukraine getting the Dassault Rafale in the near future. They'll probably go with either the Gripen due to it's lower cost or the Eu…

I agree that they are meant for slightly different types of missions. In practice they are not as different as other planes like the F-22 or other stealth planes. But for its design I think you should check out the video because it’s not just a question of which type of missions one plane can do but more how much the vertical takeoff impacted the overall capability of the plane, and this with its VTOL on or not.

My point was that countries buy those planes for the types of missions it was designed for but beyond that also strongly because they can fire nuclear missiles and are able to lease nuclear missiles from the US and have nuclear deterrence capabilities for lease.

Also agree with Ukraine not having the Rafale, it’s way too advanced for a proxy war. They didn’t get F-35 either but F-16 for the same reason.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#964

Post by r00fus »

coldburst wrote: post #942
mmcnl wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether there is a kill switch or not is somewhat irrelevant. There is a larger than nonzero chance that there is a kill switch, and the US cannot be trusted anymore. So we have to assume there is a kill switch.

Having a kill switch "just in case" really is a strategically logical move. Consider the case of Iran: In the 1960s and 1970s, the US delivered several US-built aircraft to Iran, including F-4s, F-5s, and F-14s, some of the most advanced fighters of that era. After the 1979 revolution, US-Iran relations collapsed. Despite the US cutting off spare parts and maintenance, Iran has been able to keep the aircraft operatio…

> After the 1979 revolution, US-Iran relations collapsed.

Amusing way of putting it, if you ignore the US/UK instigated 1953 coup of Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah who was busy selling out Iran to the western powers, yeah you can assuming US-Iran relations "collapsed". I'd say they collapsed in 1953 and 1979 was the aftermath.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#965

Post by genewitch »

genewitch wrote: post #927
epistasis wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to China, even they are "appalled" by what Trump is doing to cause chaos with Europe and to abandon Ukraine by holding talks about Ukraine without Ukraine: https://news.liga.net/en/politics/news/china-appalled-by-tru...

Ukraine was invited. Stop lying.

https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1740092407.97_retirednational...

"it depends on what story you read" - which is what i alluded to in my other comment. You have to choose to believe Zelenskyy, who isn't acting like someone who wants the war to end, or not. That's it.

It is possible there was "miscommunication" - as that's what they're blaming the White House Zelenskyy meeting a couple weeks ago on. But Zelenskyy was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia at that time, and that's why the talks were planned for that date.

the whole "no paper invitation, and we don't want to participate if Russia is going to be present" is quoted in several stories. So which is it, they don't want to participate, or they weren't invited?

And in that clip it is explained that Kellog nearly immediately went to Kyiv to keep communication open.

I get the feeling that people merely don't like the way this is playing out, and that somehow gives them the right to make claims on shaky evidence.

i think that there is a lot of nuance to this ukraine thing, and a lot of the problem can be directly blamed on the US.

Lindy Hop and McCain in Ukraine in 2016, setting up a proxy war: https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1740092403.145_redux2016linds...

There are factions in the US that are warmongers, and a lot of americans don't like that. We don't want to be the ire of the world by constantly meddling in affairs. "strategic deployments" and "Strategic bases" and all this, yeah. We should have stopped. I don't even know if we can extricate ourselves without completely destablizing the global economy and "peace" - but i think we oughtta try.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#966

Post by alephnerd »

bdelmas wrote: post #963
alephnerd wrote: post #945

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dassault Rafale and F35 are meant for two different types of missions, and can't be viewed as competitors. Also F35s don't need to be ALIS enabled. Israel's Adir version of the F35 uses a separate set of parts and systems co-developed with France and India. Realistically, I don't see Ukraine getting the Dassault Rafale in the near future. They'll probably go with either the Gripen due to it's lower cost or the Eu…

I agree that they are meant for slightly different types of missions. In practice they are not as different as other planes like the F-22 or other stealth planes. But for its design I think you should check out the video because it’s not just a question of which type of missions one plane can do but more how much the vertical takeoff impacted the overall capability of the plane, and this with its VTOL on or not. My p…

> My point was that countries buy those planes for the types of missions it was designed for but beyond that also strongly because they can fire nuclear missiles and are able to lease nuclear missiles from the US and have nuclear deterrence capabilities for lease.

Yep, that's the point of all MCAs, but the biggest difference between the F35 and other MCAs is the stealth technology aspect.

The F35 (along with the SU-57 and J-35) incorporated learnings from other MCA projects from the 1990s and 2000s.

You won't be able to fly a Rafale undetected on a bombing raid in Tehran or Isfahan, but that's not the point of the Rafale anyhow.

Most applications I've seen of Rafale and Rafale comparable MCAs is acting as a missle platform with some dogfighting capabilities and basic bombing capabilities if needed.

If the Super Rafale project takes off then you might see an F35 comparable jet from Dassault.

> Also agree with Ukraine not having the Rafale, it’s way too advanced for a proxy war. They didn’t get F-35 either but F-16 for the same reason

Yep! Hence why I think if Ukraine rebuilds it's airforce after this war, they will probably try to procure Saab Gripens because all they need is dogfighting plus missle platform capabilities.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#968

Post by ashoeafoot »

MisterSandman wrote: post #938
wqaatwt wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Taliban/Mujahideen didn’t win per se, they just survived long enough for the foreign “empires” to lose interest. Vietnam wasn’t a conventional conflict either. If you’re willing to lose complete control of most of “your” country and sustain 10x higher casualties than your opponent you might have a chance, but that’s an extremely steep price to pay.

That’s the most interesting way to warp reality that I’ve seen. Afghanistan won, period. It doesn’t matter how Americans would like to advertise their loss - you didn’t “lose interest”, you lost, abandoned the people who were helping you, and have left thousands of innocent civilians to fend for themselves. Afghanistan is, and should be treated as, the biggest failure of the American “empire”.

Now, now iraq and syria were pretty big defeats too. Red lines over which third world dictators stepoed pretty invurnerable.

Re: US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s

#969

Post by pyuser583 »

epistasis wrote: post #266
ta988 wrote: post #228

And the story continues. This means that no country will want to buy F16s. If you don't get support they are useless. They are eroding really fast the US shine and trust in the world. This is going to have a massive effect on the US economy, internal consumption will not save it. This is the end of an empire while its rich kings are golfing every weekend on the taxpayer dime using federal and local resources. I am re…

I always thought that the American Empire would be dismantled when it elected a leftist steeped in anti-imperialist ideology who wanted to better the world. Nope, turns out that the American Empire is being dismantled by something else entirely. A subset of the populace that feels jealous of those with more and scared of social change, reacting to try to hurt their fellow country men? A megalomaniac leader who is som…

Trumpian foreign policy isn't new. It's an "America First" ideology that goes back to Andrew Jackson. Arguably it goes back to George Washington, and his famous resignation speech.

Playing nice with foreign empires, economic protectionism, domestic military action, an "all or nothing" attitude towards foreign wars, taking chunks of our neighbors back yards, etc.

This isn't new at all. It's exactly what FDR had to overcome to build the American Empire.

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